It sounds like gstreamer-vaapi has found a VA driver that it thinks will work, rather than none at all which should fall back to software rendering.
Please install: sudo apt install vainfo Then run 'vainfo' and paste its output here. ** Changed in: totem (Ubuntu) Status: New => Incomplete ** Changed in: gstreamer-vaapi (Ubuntu) Status: New => Incomplete -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop Packages, which is subscribed to totem in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1720820 Title: Totem with gstreamer1.0-vaapi and Wayland crashes on AMD graphics Status in gstreamer-vaapi package in Ubuntu: Incomplete Status in totem package in Ubuntu: Incomplete Bug description: Totem with gstreamer1.0-vaapi and Wayland crashes on my machine with AMD Fury graphics card and open source drivers. Video output is just a black frame and crash happens within just a few seconds after video playback starts. Could not reproduce bug on two older Intel laptops with iGPU's where hardware acceleration seemed to work fine under Wayland. Issue is only present on Wayland, not x. I can get hardware accelerated video playback working on Wayland with 'mpv --hwdec=vaapi-copy --opengl-backend=wayland' but this is the only way I have found so far. Even in mpv, no other option than vaapi-copy works. gst-play-1.0 outputs the following error: ERROR Internal error: could not render surface for file:///*** ERROR debug information: ../../../gst/vaapi/gstvaapisink.c(1483): gst_vaapisink_show_frame_unlocked (): /GstPlayBin:playbin/GstPlaySink:playsink/GstBin:vbin/GstVaapiSink:vaapisink0 lsb_release -rd Description: Ubuntu Artful Aardvark (development branch) Release: 17.10 totem 3.25.90.1-0ubuntu3 gstreamer1.0-vaapi:amd64 1.12.3-1ubuntu1 To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gstreamer-vaapi/+bug/1720820/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages Post to : desktop-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp